Today I'm writing an article about losing a hearing aid. What do you do? I've lost mine a couple of times so I thought I'd share some stories.

What were the chances of this? I think this is an amazing true story!!
Some years ago I wore a hearing aid in my only good ear so you can imagine my stress when I lost it. I looked everywhere; at home, at work, asked friends and so on. One day a girl from work told me she had seen a Lost Hearing aid sign in the pharmacy at the corner in the Arkaba Shopping centre. I didn�t think it would be mine but I checked just in case. Unfortunately it wasn�t, but it was a colour I hadn�t seen before so its design stuck in my mind.

About 6 weeks later, at Easter, I travelled to visit Kangaroo Island, a ferry trip of around 3 hours from Adelaide�s beachside suburb of Glenelg. I had never been there and since it�s over $100 a ticket it�s not something people do often. On my return journey, I boarded the ferry on the Sunday night, along with about 200 others, and sat in a booth. Shortly after an elderly couple asked if they could join me and as you do when you are on a long trip we started talking. As we talked I didn�t always hear so I mentioned I was deaf.

We chatted on and in the conversation I told her I�d lost my hearing aid and was using an older one. She pointed to her husband and told me he was deaf. He wore two hearing aids and he had lost one of them so he wasn�t hearing as well as he should either. He looked up and for some reason took off his aid to show me. It was an unusual design and looked just like the one I had seen. I asked him where he thought he had lost it and he told me at the lights on the corner right near the Arkaba shopping centre. Of course, I told them about the notice at the pharmacy where I had seen one just like his.

We continued our trip. Two days later these people walked into work with a box of chocolates for me. I hadn�t told them where I worked but I had mentioned the area. The lost hearing aid was his and they were so grateful to have found it they searched me out to say thank you.

What were the chances of me sitting next to these people on this particular ferry trip?

And another time. I had just met my second husband and had moved into his house. We were doing a lot of gardening and as I often did I put my hearing aid into my bra because I both hated the sound and it kept falling off or cutting out sound as I bent up and down and gave me feedback.

We worked for some time and got very tired. Eventually as evening settled in I came into the house carrying a heap of tissues I had used while working. I went to the toilet and suddenly found my hearing aid was no longer in my bra.

Panic. Together with my husband and two of our children we went through the whole garden. I had been laying mulch so we pulled it all up in the dusk trying to find my hearing aid. The next morning at first light I was out again searching. But we never found it. To this day I wonder if when I came in I had it in my hand and flushed it down the toilet with the heap of tissues I was holding.

I never did replace this aid. It was, by this time, too powerful for my deteriorating hearing so I simply wore a less powerful older aid.

A Deaf friend of mine tells this story. She was deafened as a baby and while she wore a hearing aid it basically only helped her with environmental sound. As a result, if it was annoying her, as many women do she would often take it off and put into her bra for safe keeping.

One day she was at the beach and she wanted to go swimming. So she removed her aid and carefully tucked it into her bra for safe keeping and jumped into the ocean. A few minutes later she realised what she had done.

Wendy tells how her son's new puppy ate her brand new Baha aid. She was very considerate and didn't kill the puppy.BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!